Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

James Kirkup

Jeremy Hunt’s fantasy Budget

As Rachel Reeves prepares what is potentially the most difficult Budget in a generation, a question occurs: what if the Conservatives had, somehow, won the election? Historians hate counterfactuals, considering them unhelpful parlour-games. Personally, I enjoy a good ‘what if’ – not least because they can help put current political events in context. In that spirit, I’m pleased to present here the October 2024 Budget speech that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt might give in a parallel universe where the Conservatives remained in office after the election. As well a Budget address, this is also my resignation speech ‘Madam Deputy Speaker, it gives me no great pleasure to present this Budget statement

Isabel Hardman

Does Wes Streeting’s ten-year NHS plan amount to anything?

The Health Secretary is making a big fanfare about a cash boost in the Budget and a new plan to reform the NHS so that it becomes a more community-based, prevention-focused service. But at the moment, his plan for the health service is very much in nascent form: the government is nowhere near close to publishing it and is instead going to start asking for ideas from the public and healthcare workers.  Wes Streeting’s ministerial colleague Stephen Kinnock sketched out how this consultation would run when he spoke at The Spectator’s health fringe at Labour conference. He told us that there would be a lengthy ‘national conversation’ about what people

Limor Simhony Philpott

Iran is playing a dangerous game

A drone exploded in a sleepy Israeli seaside town yesterday. The target of the attack was Benjamin Netanyahu. By luck, the drone missed its target – Netanyahu’s home – and no one was hurt in the explosion. Hezbollah launched three drones from Lebanon toward Caesarea. Two were shot down by the Israel Defense Forces but, worryingly, the third arrived undetected. Sirens, which are supposed to warn civilians of an impending attack, did not sound, meaning no one knew they should seek refuge in a bomb shelter. The Israeli Prime Minister claimed he was not at home when the drone hit. An Iranian – or Iranian-backed – assassination of the Israeli Prime

Kate Andrews

Labour budget: are we heading for austerity?

23 min listen

Labour’s first Budget in 14 years will be delivered at the end of the month. The Prime Minister and Chancellor have already been warning that the public isn’t going to like what’s in it. But how will the Budget affect people? Will Labour break its manifesto commitment not to tax working people? And is it really true that things have to get worse before they get better? Kate Andrews is joined by Paul Mason, journalist at The New European. Join Freddy Gray a special live recording of Americano on Thursday 24 October. You can buy tickets at spectator.com/electionspecial. 

Gavin Mortimer

Meloni’s migrant crisis success must be unbearable for Macron

When the 27 leaders of the European Union met in Brussels this week, the migrant crisis was high on the agenda. In her opening remarks at the summit, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen drew attention to the deals agreed in the last 12 months between the bloc and countries such as Tunisia and Egypt. ‘These partnerships are working,’ said von der Leyen. ‘If you look at the Central Mediterranean Route, which we have been working on intensively, overall the arrivals are now down by minus 64 per cent.’ Macron has been a formidable obstacle to tackling Europe’s migrant crisis The woman who deserves the credit for this dramatic

Robert Service

Is Stalin-worship back in Russia?

As if the Russian political barometer hasn’t fallen low enough, news comes that it has yet to reach the bottom of the glass. Official symbolism is a reliable indicator of trends, and an announcement by Georgi Filimonov this week marks a new low. Filimonov, recently appointed as governor of Vologda province, plans to erect a life-sized statue of dictator Joseph Stalin in the provincial capital. Not to denounce him but to ‘commemorate’ him.  Probably, Putin always had an admiration for Stalin Decades have passed since Nikita Khrushchëv spread the word in the Soviet Union that Stalin was a despot and a mass killer. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin expanded the

Gavin Haynes

This is the election of the longform podcast

We’re a long way from 2015.  Nine years ago, Barack Obama rolled up to a soundproofed garage outside the comedian Marc Maron’s California home, and entered podcasting lore. Not only the first black president, the first president on a podcast.  Fast forward to 2024, and the first three-President podcast. By March, when Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden all turned up on Jason Bateman and Will Arnett’s mega-bucks big-network vehicle, SmartLess, something had shifted.   It’s been a long short ride, with many false starts, but just as 2008 was indisputably ‘the first social media election’, 2024 is definitely the first longform podcast election.  What began as a trickle is ending

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet

How Iran’s proxies are spreading in Africa

Yahya Sinwar died more like a mob hoodlum than the ruthless head of a paramilitary terrorist movement. He was caught scurrying for shelter between two safe houses, carrying a couple of fake IDs, a wad of large-denomination Israeli bills, guns and breath mints. The IDF troops who killed him didn’t even know who he was — just a bad guy. Sinwar’s demise, coming as it does after the elimination of nearly the entire Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon, is another severe blow to Iran. The Islamic Republic’s two deadliest proxies are now a bloody shambles. Its aura of strength in the Muslim world has been damaged. In Syria, too, Bashar al-Assad

Ed Nash

I’m worried about drone terrorism

In 2018 an event occurred that really deserved more attention. A military parade was being addressed by Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, and two small, explosive-laden drones exploded. The attack was unsuccessful (Maduro survived) but around ten people were injured. The use of targeted drones represented a new phase of terrorism. We are now a long way from the comparatively primitive efforts of 2018. While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been a staple of militaries for decades (in fact the first attack using mechanical UAVs was at the Siege of Venice in 1849), the miniaturisation and improving technology available on the civilian market means that the threat from the small hobbyist drone is reaching new

Saturday

Philip Patrick

A day of violence in Tokyo

It has been an alarming day in Tokyo as political terror returned to the streets of the capital. A man was arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails at the headquarters of the ruling party Jiminto (LDP) in the centre of the city. The bombs hit a police vehicle and the resultant fire was soon extinguished. Today’s attack marks the third time homemade weapons were employed The man who threw the Molotovs, identified as 49-year-old Atsunobu Usuda from Saitama, near Tokyo, then tried to drive his car into the grounds of the prime minister’s office, but he couldn’t get through the metal barrier. After that he tried to throw a smoke bomb at police. Then he was arrested. The man’s wrecked van was found to contain 10

Kate Andrews

Here come the stealth taxes!

When Rachel Reeves’s ambition was to find £22 billion, it was already clear that she would need to find more revenue than what was expected to come from the relatively small take hikes the party announced it would pull pre-election. When that number was upgraded to £40 billion, there was no denying that a big tax hike was coming, the kind that tends to come from the major revenue raisers: income tax, National Insurance, or VAT. Despite being a stealth tax, will it go unnoticed? Of course Labour ruled out hikes to these three taxes with its tax ‘triple lock’ in the election manifesto. So the party has had to

Katy Balls

Should bishops be booted out of the Lords?

18 min listen

The House of Lords contains 26 Church of England archbishops and bishops who possess an automatic right to sit and vote in the House, as established by ancient usage and by statute. But for how much longer? Labour have big plans for the Lords and have been pushing ahead with their crackdown on hereditary peers. But this week we learnt that Tory MP Gavin Williamson will table an amendment calling for them to reconsider the role of bishops as well. Gavin says that a clergy-free Lords would be more representative of modern Britain and is expecting to gain cross-party support, including from the likes of Jeremy Corbyn. The Spectator’s features editor

Lisa Hilton

Richard Dawkins, Nicholas Farrell, Mary Wakefield, Lisa Hilton and Philip Hensher

33 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Richard Dawkins reads his diary for the week (1:21); Nicholas Farrell argues that Italy is showing the EU the way on migration (6:33); Mary Wakefield reflects on the horrors, and teaching, of the Second World War (13:54); Lisa Hilton examines what made George Villiers a favourite of King James I (19:10); and a local heroin addict makes Philip Hensher contemplate his weight (27:10).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Lee Cohen

Labour can’t help Kamala Harris

The news that Labour is sending volunteers to assist Kamala Harris’s campaign is an outrage. In what world is it acceptable for a foreign political entity to interfere in the democratic process of a sovereign nation? If the Tories were shipping off their operatives to help Donald Trump, the shrieking harpies would be crying foul, calling election interference. But it favours Kamala Harris, suddenly, the lines of legality and ethics are blurred, if not outright erased.  I don’t like it, clearly, but in some ways it’s laughable Inarticulate, policy-challenged Kamala Harris has bumbled her way through high-stakes interviews, fumbled crucial debates, and remains woefully underqualified in foreign affairs. Her rise

Edward Howell

North Korean soldiers will become Putin’s cannon fodder

Hermit kingdoms usually keep themselves to themselves, but now, North Korea is reinventing the moniker by which it has long been known. The country may have the world’s fourth largest military, numbering nearly 1.5 million – out of a population of 26 million – but when the first tanks invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, few observers would have anticipated North Korea’s actual involvement in the ensuing war. It is not only Ukrainian intelligence reports which, this week, raised the possibility that over 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to aid Russia’s war effort. Only a few hours ago, South Korea’s intelligence agency has confirmed this grim reality –

Patrick O’Flynn

How the Tories changed their tune on Nigel Farage – and Reform

A year ago, the Reform party had an average poll rating of six per cent and was as good as invisible to that large majority of the electorate which does not obsess about politics. Its then leader Richard Tice was showing impressive reserves of stoicism in keeping the show on the road, but there was no sign of lift off. In two parliamentary by-elections, held in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire on October 19, 2023, Reform scored vote shares of 5.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively. The traditional Tory tactic of trying to depict Farage as not respectable has run its course When Rishi Sunak marks his second anniversary as

Laurie Wastell

Kemi Badenoch should stop being woke

The Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has long argued against the Labour party and the left’s ‘divisive agenda of identity politics’. Instead, she has sought to portray the Conservatives as a truly ‘colour-blind party’ and a ‘genuine meritocracy’. Speaking to the Times earlier this year, she even argued that we should not make a ‘big deal’ of her potentially becoming the first black woman to lead the party. This isn’t the first time Badenoch has failed to live up to her anti-woke credentials So it’s strange, as ballots for the leadership contest go out to Tory members, to see Badenoch suddenly emphasising her ethnicity. The Essex MP would be ‘Labour’s worst nightmare’, she

Julie Bindel

Is it time for feminists to turn to the Tories?

Should feminists like me hold their nose and team up with the Tories? It’s a dilemma many of those concerned about the transgender debate are wrestling with. Labour has spectacularly failed women when it comes to protecting their rights. The Green party seems more interested in protecting transgender rights than saving the environment. And the Lib Dems want to make it even easier for men to get government-issued certificates declaring themselves to be women. The Conservatives are hardly an enticing option, but are they the party that is best placed to speak up for women? The Labour party has spectacularly failed women In the July election, Labour had my vote

Sergey Radchenko

Why should Putin negotiate?

In just a few months we will mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, and has left millions displaced. Ukraine’s infrastructure – in particular the energy infrastructure – is in shambles. The costs of recovery will likely be in the trillions of dollars. And still, there is no end in sight. As the war drags on, calls for negotiations are becoming louder. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been trumping up support for his Victory Plan. The details are unclear – presumably the ‘plan’ is to negotiate new military aid and viable security guarantees for Ukraine in return for the

Friday

Svitlana Morenets

Is North Korea joining the war in Ukraine?

In Russia’s far east, North Korean soldiers are reportedly being trained to fight in the war against Ukraine. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian intelligence, has said that more than 10,000 North Korean troops will not only assist and train Russian forces, but also fight alongside them – starting next month. At least 2,600 of these troops could be deployed in Russia’s Kursk region, to free up Russian soldiers to join Vladimir Putin’s offensive in the Donbas. Zelensky said this means North Korea has ‘effectively joined’ the war South Korea’s spy agency reports that North Korea is sending 12,000 men from four brigades, including elite special forces, to join the war in